As we sit there, neither of us speaking, I begin to wish I had something to occupy my hands as he does with his pipe. Young people do not smoke. It is that way with our people, unlike the white men who seem to use tobacco all the time, whether they are young men or older. We Anitsalagi believe that tobacco is too special for that. It is something that the Creator gave as a gift. Young men may smoke the pipe with others in a ceremonial way as a sign of peace. But solitary smoking is meant only to ease the lives of those who are elderly. Although even the elderly should not smoke all the time because it might make them sick.

My father finishes the pipe, taps it out into his hand, and then gently blows away the ashes. “Wado,” he says to the little wind that swirls away the ashes.

Then, as he tucks the pipe in his vest pocket, he turns to me and says:

“Back when the world was new,” he says, “there were seven old men who were leaders of their people. It was a time when there was fighting going on and it was the job of those old men to bring peace. But when they gathered together, they did not talk about peace. All they did was to bend their heads over their pipes and keep smoking, even though the proper time to do so would have been after peace was made. The smoke rose up from their pipes and turned into clouds.

“They smoked for seven days and nights. Seeing what those old men were doing, the Creator was not pleased. Instead of trying to bring peace, they were just smoking. So he turned those seven elders into those grayish-white flowers that bend over like old men smoking pipes.

“Today those pipe flowers, which are the color of an old person’s hair, grow wherever friends and relatives have been quarreling to remind them to try to find peace.”

My father looks off to the east, toward the big mountains that rise there.

“And the Creator also made smoke that stays over the mountaintops as a further reminder. It will remain there until the day comes when everyone finally learns to live in peace.”

The story finished, my father settles back into that companionable silence of his. I feel comfortable sharing that silence. You do not always have to be talking to communicate with someone. And that silence gives me time to think about that story and about tobacco.